Christopher Knight, Art Critic
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The print exhibition at the Hammer Museum reveals the lot of disenfranchised women in belle époque Paris amid the emergence of Symbolist art.
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A typical video by Francesco Vezzoli is a veritable cavalcade of stars, mostly female — Helen Mirren, Natalie Portman, Catherine Deneuve, Eva Mendez, Milla Jovovich, Michelle Williams, Lauren Bacall and many more, plus a few men (Helmut Berger, Benicio Del Toro) — whose movies have referred to art (“Dorian Gray,” “Basquiat”).
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The exquisite beadwork in ‘Floral Journey’ at Autry National Center has messages about the beliefs, struggles of Native Americans.
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Art review: Retrospectives of New York-based artists Michelle Stuart and Alice Aycock meet auspiciously at the Santa Barbara Museum of Art.
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The power of art and history fuse in an exhibition at the Getty of the Canterbury Cathedral’s stained-glass windows and the St. Albans Psalter.
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Adam Silverman collapses clay pots and buildings in ‘Clay and Space,’ a provocative installation at Laguna Art Museum.
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Jam-packed exhibit at the Hammer Museum at UCLA focuses on two genres from that time: appropriation art and pieces that challenged the establishment.
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Art review: The wide open spaces of MOCA’s Geffen Contemporary are perfect for a retrospective of the late L.A. artist Mike Kelley. The groupings help underscore his art’s ricocheting resonance.
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Review: The show ‘Sinful Saints and Saintly Sinners at the Margins of the Americas’ at the UCLA Fowler Museum looks at mythic figures who fuse sacred and profane in the U.S., Mexico and South America.
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The Getty Villa’s ‘Heaven and Earth: Art of Byzantium from Greek Collections’ is a shining confluence of the earthly and the divine.
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Critic’s Notebook: The stakes are high for both MOCA and Philippe Vergne as the new director’s background comes more into focus.
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Critic’s Notebook: J. Seward Johnson’s ‘Forever Marilyn’ was meant to honor Marilyn Monroe, but the ham-handed sculpture dehumanizes her.
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Picks include Buddhist art at Norton Simon, Mike Kelley at Geffen Contemporary, ‘Expressionism in Germany and France: From Van Gogh to Kandinsky’ at LACMA.
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Critic’s Notebook: The late Mike Kelley gives the storm and stress of adolescence its due in work both potent and eccentric, soon to be on view in a MOCA retrospective.
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The landmark painting stands magnificently, no less so after the debunking of a myth regarding its creation
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Mexican artist Alfredo Ramos Martínez, who moved to L.A. in 1929, is the subject of an exhibition at Pasadena Museum of California Art. He brought Art Deco distinction to images of workers.
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Notes on the Year: George W. Bush is attempting to brush aside history by creating portraits of cats and landscapes. It’s not working.
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Critic’s Notebook: Hard-edge vs. Abstract Classicism? When it comes to ‘LACMA’s Four Abstract Classicists,’ only one term strikes the right note.
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Marvel at how lines bend, edges arc and shapes bow in the hands of Alexander Calder at a beautiful exhibition of his mobiles and other works.
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Charles Reiffel, Laura Owens, Lari Pittman, James Turrell, Forrest Bess, John Divola, Richard Diebenkorn and more.
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Andrea Bowers’ installation at Pomona and Pitzer college galleries goes beyond a rape in Steubenville, Ohio, to examine social mores, media and victimization in a digital age.
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A cultural heritage law in Italy may have helped artworks avoid Nazi plunder — unlike a Strozzi painting recently returned to its rightful owner — and make their way to the U.S.
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A lovely show at the Palm Springs Art Museum traces the development of the artist who would produce the peerless ‘Ocean Park’ abstractions.
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Four impressive exhibitions Museo Jumex show that the new museum in Mexico City for contemporary art is heading in the right direction.
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Museum’s former public affairs director makes gift of Baroque-era masterpiece by Bernardo Strozzi valued at $3 million.
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The Cyrus Cylinder display is among SoCal events that also include exhibits on Renaissance paintings, Forrest Bess, John Divola and self-taught artists from the South.
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‘Chris Burden: Extreme Measures,’ a retrospective at the New Museum, needs only a small sampling to show artist’s deep influence.
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‘Sam Francis: Five Decades of Abstract Expressionism from California Collections’ at the Pasadena Museum of California Art impresses.
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‘Seeing Things Invisible’ marks the West Coast’s first substantive focus on the provocative Texas artist.
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On view at LACMA, David Hockney’s ‘Seven Yorkshire Landscape Videos’ travels country roads, recording the scene in ways that echo artistic forebears.
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The downtown performance art is an irony-steeped exercise in endurance, as Youd re-types the author’s first book on a single battered page.
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Critic’s Notebook: Secrecy by the German authorities must end over the newly found trove of major works missing since the Nazi era.
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Critic’s Notebook: Paul Conrad’s ‘Chain Reaction’ remains a vital message and safety concerns have been debunked, so why is Santa Monica determined to dismantle the sculpture?
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The small, illuminating exhibit highlights the effect of travel and trade between Italy and other European countries on artworks.
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The Museum of Contemporary Art leader, whose departure appears imminent, came to the post as a gallery owner untested in areas crucial to a museum.
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Asia powerfully interacts with the Americas, rather than just Europe, in the Orange County Museum of Art’s triennial show.
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Critic’s Notebook: As architect Peter Zumthor’s LACMA plan is debated, look at what spaces have made for first-rate art museum buildings.
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Critic’s Notebook: As Pablo Picasso’s ‘Guernica’ responded to a Spanish tragedy, Andy Warhol’s ‘Jackie’ addressed an American one, albeit differently.
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Eighty-five years ago, eight paintings by the Postimpressionist master were bequeathed to the nation’s presidents — works hidden, often in plain sight.
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Critic’s Notebook: A collector intended eight Postimpressionist works to adorn America’s seat of power. The terms of his 1928 will remain unfulfilled.
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Geometric shapes rise, fall, twirl, unfold and collapse as ‘Encounters’ explores the early 20th century artist’s work in film, along with his paintings, prints and sculptures.
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Critic’s Notebook: Art and nature are joined in equal measure in the artist’s magnificent ‘Great Piece of Turf,’ on display in Washington, D.C.
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Officials at the Museum of Contemporary Art seem to think that changing the art program will fix the business plan. They’re wrong.
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John Anderson’s new epilogue for ‘Art Held Hostage’ points a damning finger. Neil L. Rudenstine’s ‘The House of Barnes’ illuminates little.
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John Divola’s photographs are challenging and astute. It’s great to know so many are on view, but with series of work in L.A., Santa Barbara and Claremont, it’s hard to see everything.
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LAND’s scruffy and ambitious show at the old Farmers & Merchants Bank downtown reveals the wide world of conceptual abstraction.
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Director Ann Philbin says free admission will kick into place in February. The aim: wider public engagement with museum offerings. The announcement follows two others.
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The unprecedented, six-month series of exhibitions will detail an era in city art history that has been largely untold.
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He is the rare artist who is adept at creating paintings and sculptures, as a traveling retrospective at the UCLA Hammer Museum shows.
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Critic’s Notebook: The avant-garde composer’s art may not rise to the level of his music, but the same spirit is at work, soon to be on view in Pomona.
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Mexican American art has come a long way since the movement of the 1970s. LACMA’s ‘Phantom Sightings’ traces its zigzag path.
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The painter, who died last week at 91, played a key role in helping Hugh Hefner push his ‘Playboy Philosophy’ on a culture steeped in Puritan values.
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Critic’s Notebook: It’s a shame that men far outnumber women when it comes to solo exhibitions at LACMA and MOCA; the same is true with the Getty’s photography shows.
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The Isenheim Altarpiece is shocking yet comforting. As movies and video games are taken to task, it’s important to remember images’ many powers.
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The stylish exhibition mainly showcases the commercial legacy of graffiti, ignoring much of the form’s cultural influence and L.A.’s role.
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‘James Turrell: A Retrospective’ at the Los Angeles County Museum of Art captures the essence of the artist’s spiritual connection to light and sight and gives insights on Roden Crater, his work in progress.
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The attention given to Michael Heizer’s ‘Levitated Mass’ at LACMA has many anticipating a masterpiece or a fiasco. But it’s not that simple.
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Now that the collection is going public, Eli Broad should seize the opportunity to create a truly welcoming artistic environment in downtown L.A.
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Some of his work can be seen in ‘Crosscurrents’ at the Getty, but the progenitor of great postwar art in L.A. merited a major solo retrospective.
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Artschwager created sculptures carefully crafted from wood and often covered in Formica. His paintings, mostly limited to black acrylic, were applied to cheap materials and derive from photos.
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The city cements its rise to artistic international prominence even as changing economies give major institutions pause.
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The Getty Museum directorship has become a revolving door, since the director has responsibility without authority.
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The California-born artist’s retrospective includes unsettling works on history and politics.
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The Belgian artist shakes up notions of portraiture in particular and painting in general. He wants you to see with your brain.
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L.A. County Museum of Art has made the most of a donated Latin American collection’s stars and sold other pieces to successfully enhance its holdings.
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Curator Paul Schimmel was key in building MOCA’s reputation. That he was dumped by the trustees (and informed by Eli Broad) is troubling.
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Wifredo Lam’s delirious fusion paintings explore spiritual issues.
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Over the last two decades, the artist has assembled a collection of paintings of the 4th century saint.
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Sure, showings elsewhere have been overseen by armed guards. But it’s typically less noticeable than at BCAM, where it changes the viewing dynamic.
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The reopening of the San Marino gallery couldn’t be more timely.
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Conceptually sophisticated and visually smashing, the installation design that artist Jorge Pardo conceived and executed for the impressive Pre-Columbian collection at the Los Angeles County Museum of Art was unveiled to the public Sunday.
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His works, such as colored planks leaning against walls, embody perceptual and philosophical conundrums. Some mistakenly thought the monolith in ‘2001: A Space Odyssey’ was related to his creations.
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‘The Cool School’ paints an entertaining picture of the gallery that catalyzed L.A.’s postwar art scene.
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Kenneth Price was among the first generation of iconoclastic L.A. artists to attain international stature. His work with glazed and painted clay was ‘resolutely original’ and redefined contemporary sculpture, an observer says.
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The vitality imbued in the Italian Modernist’s paintings focused frequently on vessels and containers spills out at New York’s Metropolitan Museum.
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Its fondness for the Pacific Rim artists notwithstanding, the gallery reflects our shifting demographics.
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An exhibition at the UCLA Hammer Museum includes works from his beginnings as a wallpaper designer, his solo exhibition at the just-opened Museum of Modern Art in Manhattan and more.
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After overseeing the art museum’s financial meltdown, its trustees should write checks.
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A sampling of the stand-out shows to watch for as Southern California’s multi-museum art fest gets underway.
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Innovative galleries and artists, museums packed with treasures give the city its soul.
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Cluttered, badly maintained and with no clear plan for its rehabilitation, a new era may be dawning for America’s ‘front yard.’
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An exhibition of oil paintings by the abstract artist celebrates the museum’s 50th anniversary.
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A retrospective at the Santa Monica Museum of Art presents the artist’s brand of performance sculpture, funny and intense.
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The sublime emptiness of Washington’s National Mall stands for nothing less than democracy. If the nation’s politicians won’t protect it, the public must.
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The Conceptual artist receives a welcome overview at L.A.’s Museum of Contemporary Art.
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Portrait busts and drawings from 17th century sculpture are impressively lifelike.
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The exhibition, a collaboration between London’s National Portrait Gallery and the magazine, merely celebrates celebrity.
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SEATTLE — When the Seattle Art Museum turns 75 next year, it intends to be not only the most important general art museum in the Pacific Northwest but to be nationally prominent too.
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Also: Antonio Pineda at UCLA’s Fowler Museum, Tomma Abts at UCLA Hammer Museum and Hans Burkhardt at Cal State Northridge
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Review: The Getty Museum offers a bracing display of his sophisticated yet brash Western landscapes
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Participatory art. That’s what these two were after. Can a museum begin to contain their work?
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Morbidity finds expression in Marlene Dumas’ art exhibition at MOCA.
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Also reviewed: Kris Martin at Marc Foxx; Jon Rappleye at Richard Heller; and Nathan Redwood at Carl Berg
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Set out the flares: It’s important to approach the subject of cars and art in L.A. with considerable caution.
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Cheech Marin’s ‘Los Angelenos’ has no place in a public museum like LACMA.
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The exhibition at Oceanside Museum of Art is a study of life and tastes in the region.
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Also reviewed: David Amico at Ace Gallery Beverly Hills, Robert Gutierrez at Sister Gallery and Andy Warhol at Michael Kohn Gallery
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Also: Masami Teraoka at Samuel Freeman Gallery; Mary Addison Hackett at Kristi Engle Gallery; Sandeep Mukherjee at Sister Gallery and Cottage Home.
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His combines, which incorporated objects such as tires, newspaper clippings and stuffed animals, established new directions and prominence for American art.
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The newly refurbished Huntington mounts ‘This Side of Paradise,’ billed as the most comprehensive exhibition of photographs of Los Angeles, the city that grew up in the camera’s eye.
